Managing a computer system which includes a plurality of devices such as networks or servers, is of special interest to data processing or information technology personnel. Such computer systems typically include a plurality of diverse devices including memory, disks, local area network (LAN) adaptors and central processing units (CPUs) which interact in various ways to facilitate data processing applications.
As systems become larger and more complex, interactions between electronic devices become harder to define, model, and/or predict. Such systems may suffer from inefficiencies or “bottlenecks” that slow or even stop the system.
Often, the performance of a computer system or network is less than it could be because of one or more components having an inappropriate load applied thereto. Thus, it is desirable to know what changes to the system would be required in order to improve capacity of each electronic device. Further, such changes would allow the manipulation of a preset number of electronic devices instead of the system as a whole. To accomplish this, there remains a need for a system and method capable of collecting and analyzing performance data such that it may be utilized to predict future performance of individual electronic devices.